Chorus Fibre Unbundling

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shaunm

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#240353 3-Sep-2018 17:32

For those of you that might be interested in a read on the up and coming Unbundling of Chorus Fibre.

Below is the the road map and technical docs that are now open to the public.

https://sp.chorus.co.nz/news/fibre-product-consultation-post-2020

https://sp.chorus.co.nz/sites/default/files/files/Chorus%20Technical%20Document%20Layer%201%20Unbundling_September%202018%20final_0.pdf

Shaun.

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#2084114 4-Sep-2018 23:28

I just don't see how this is worth the effort for Vodafone and Vocus. There is no profit to be made, due to all the investment they have to make in purchasing and housing OLT's, installing splitters in the fibre flexibility point, and maintaining that parallel fibre network to Chorus. With multiple touch points that involves Chorus and themselves in the upkeep and provisioning of the Layer 1 network.

Surely the Telco's are on the race to the bottom. Instead of rewarding long term customers with discounts, they are encouraging customers to switch providers every 12 months to get sign-up package deals.

In the end, in this type of unbundling, the customer suffers, because when networks becomes under utilised (say Chorus looses chunk of customers on a network that they have just built), then they loose the revenue pool that can be used to maintain their networks.

michaelmurfy

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#2084117 5-Sep-2018 01:16

I think this is an absolute idiotic thing to do.

The problem here is moving ISP's - If you're unlucky enough to want to move to an ISP who has their own ONT then you're just adding yet another ONT. If you want to change from that ISP then you have to get that ONT replaced or switch back to the Chorus one. It gets messy, fast.

But, it gets worse. What if you move into an apartment block with only Vodafone ONT's? I've seen this happen with Cable here in Wellington (apartments fitted with Cable only, no phone so you have only one ISP choice).

If this ever happens, and my ISP wants me to change my ONT then I'll switch from them to an ISP that uses the ONT of my local RSP. I have zero interest in changing my ONT and it really isn't needed. I trust Chorus more with maintaining networks than a provider like Vodafone.

Just like @703 states - the customer suffers and only the ISP wins. It is just another way to lower costs (to a degree) and also in a way locking customers in to their own network. I think whoever decided to unbundle the UFB network is an idiot (no easy way to say it) as instead I think this network should be run, and maintained by the RSP with regulation on wholesale pricing to access - the customer wins (yay - freedom to move to any ISP they like) and it is fair to the RSP who built and maintains the network.

This is on a whole different league compared to Copper.

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Tinkerisk

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#2084125 5-Sep-2018 03:15

I left vodafone a month ago just because they were not willing to unveil my VoIP credentials for an ATA setup (to enforce me to use their crappy router) and they still don't provide any IPv6 addresses (in GER). They contacted me twice a week and offered nice plans you can't imagine just to keep me to stay but those salespersons didn't understand what I was looking for.

For fibre I expect a common standard ONT on the wall and all relevant information to set up a non mandatory router (which can be taken by the customer or not) behind the ONT. The ISP should do an automated set-up only when triggered by not so techsavvy people on provided equipment - full stop. Luckily this is given by the ex governmental ISP since they had to let in other (private) ISPs but kept the authority over the 'last mile' telco-network.

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sbiddle

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#2084169 5-Sep-2018 08:58

Tinkerisk:

I left vodafone a month ago just because they were not willing to unveil my VoIP credentials for an ATA setup (to enforce me to use their crappy router) and they still don't provide any IPv6 addresses (in GER). They contacted me twice a week and offered nice plans you can't imagine just to keep me to stay but those salespersons didn't understand what I was looking for.

For fibre I expect a common standard ONT on the wall and all relevant information to set up a non mandatory router (which can be taken by the customer or not) behind the ONT. The ISP should do an automated set-up only when triggered by not so techsavvy people on provided equipment - full stop. Luckily this is given by the ex governmental ISP since they had to let in other (private) ISPs but kept the authority over the 'last mile' telco-network.

I can't disagree more and there are plenty of threads on here and a blog post where I've written pretty extensively as to why such a scenario simply isn't possible.

It's the job of an RSP to deliver an end to end solution that works and more importantly works all the time. That's what 99.9% of users want and demand, and the only way this can be achieved is via a fully managed service.

You fall in the 0.1% of users who don't like being told what to do and the great thing in NZ in particular is that there are 80+ RSP's who offer services so if you want to deploy your own hardware there are options for you to do that.

If your voice hardware then gets compromised and exploited for calling, you can't dial 111, you get phantom SIP URI calls 24/7 from sipvicous bots, you can't dial some numbers because of a dialplan issue, a codec mismatch or packet size mismatch (all of which are issues posted on here from threads over the years where people have tried to use their own VoIP hardware for a managed service) you're then totally on your own when it comes to fixing it.

A single ONT is exactly what New Zealand has right now with a single wholesaled network. Unbundled fibre changes that entirely and moves away from that model which precisely what the purpose of unbunding is - other telcos want access to the fibre in the ground, not the equipment at each end of the fibre.

sbiddle

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#2084176 5-Sep-2018 09:14

michaelmurfy:

I think this is an absolute idiotic thing to do.

How else do you think it should work?

Unbunding is exactly that - unbunding the current bundled wholesale service which is a fully managed wholesale solution from the OLT to ONT. Unbunding is about offering wholesale access to the fibre in the ground in the same way unbundled copper delivered full access to the copper MPF between the exchange and premises.

Unbundled access to the fibre right now means giving exactly what Chorus are proposing - a 3rd party who wants their own service installs their own OLT in the exchange, uses a distribution fibre to the node where they install their own splitter next to the Chorus one, and the 2nd fibre going to every premises is spliced at the ETP and ITP and a the telco's ONT is installed next to the Chorus one.

Right now this is the only logical way to approach this, and it's been the plan since UFB was first designed.

The problem is there are telcos out there who don't want this approach. You can't cherry pick high value customers and offer them a cheaper service if you actually have to invest your own money in the first place building out a solution. They want to cherry pick the parts of the current UFB build that would cost them money to replicate and want the cheapest possible price for wholesale access.

They want what is in effect a hybrid solution that costs them the least amount of money by using approaches such as TWDM that uses different wavelengths for each operator so existing splitters would be retained and there would be no need to use the 2nd fibre into the premises - it would simply be an ONT swap. The problem is TWDM-PON is very new technology and isn't used anywhere in the world on a large scale. It would also mean significant investment for Chorus and the LFC's to support this, with the catch 22 that they're having to spend money so a 3rd party can spend less and take their customers.

You can't plan for solutions using technology that is arguably not ready for the mass market. Time after time solutions fail because new promised technologies don't live up to the hype or simply don't work.

Is TWDM-PON the future of UFB unbundling? Yes it probably is. Can it be offered as a solution for a little over a years time when UFB is legally required to be unbundled? No it can't.

wratterus

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#2084189 5-Sep-2018 09:41

Where is the minus 1 button?

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Tinkerisk

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#2084415 5-Sep-2018 15:53

sbiddle:

You fall in the 0.1% of users who don't like being told what to do and the great thing in NZ in particular is that there are 80+ RSP's who offer services so if you want to deploy your own hardware there are options for you to do that.

Luckily I fall in the 100% of users who are supplied exactly like I described above since there is only one RSP for the hole country. All ISPs must negotiate the use of the last mile with them, controlled by the regulation authorities. The average user can just buy a Fritzbox and he'll be happy, when he can select his ISP in the setup and all done (it's guaranteed since 1-2 years now, that no one can be enforced to buy/rent any ISP's crappy equipment - guess what - by the regulation authority).

If he's in trouble with the wires or the routing, he rings his ISP who passes the issue to the only RSP responsible to repair it asap. There is no artificial need for any additional 'service'. Yes, and the prices for it are about 50% for a standard VDSL 100/40 dual stack incl. EU wide phone flat in comparison to NZ. The same applies to FTTH, especially the ONT, which is a Huawei EchoLife for all and after that it's CPE.

So what's wrong with it from the CUSTOMER's view?

BarTender

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#2084418 5-Sep-2018 16:03

Tinkerisk:

sbiddle:

You fall in the 0.1% of users who don't like being told what to do and the great thing in NZ in particular is that there are 80+ RSP's who offer services so if you want to deploy your own hardware there are options for you to do that.

Luckily I fall in the 100% of users who are supplied exactly like I described above since there is only one RSP for the hole country. All ISPs must negotiate the use of the last mile with them, controlled by the regulation authorities. The average user can just buy a Fritzbox and he'll be happy, when he can select his ISP in the setup and all done (it's guaranteed since 1-2 years now, that no one can be enforced to buy/rent any ISP's crappy equipment - guess what - by the regulation authority).

If he's in trouble with the wires or the routing, he rings his ISP who passes the issue to the only RSP responsible to repair it asap. There is no artificial need for any additional 'service'. Yes, and the prices for it are about 50% for a standard VDSL 100/40 dual stack incl. EU wide phone flat in comparison to NZ.

So what's wrong with it from the CUSTOMER's view?

If you want VoIP on your own managed device then purchase voice service from 2Talk or WXC and they will happily supply it to you at a price and then you get what you get including the password so you can plug those credentials into your own device and it "works" without any guarantees.

If you want to purchase the managed voice service from Vodafone, Orcon or any other RSPs that offered a CPE with built in voice then purchase that. Spark and others supply voice in the ONT so there is even less chance to get the SIP credentials there.

Supplying data is easy, it's just inbound packets without any quality of service. Voice is MUCH MUCH more complex to do properly with QoS and prioritisation of Voice over the Data so you d. Hence why RSPs don't like anyone plugging any old random SIP client into their managed VoIP stack having the expectation that it would work.

BarTender

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#2084421 5-Sep-2018 16:16

The only thought I did have about this thread is perhaps Vodafone or Vocus or someone will want to get onto provisioning service including the cost of investment for ONTs/OLTs etc to prevent others (like Spark) from doing it.

Like others I don't think it makes any sense as the economies of scale will realistically prevent it being feasible.

Since if anyone does want to do it they have a mountain of costs to climb including:

Building a provisioning stack including address management that can handle making provisioning decisions on a per-address basis between Chorus, Enable, UFF, Northpower, Unison Fibre (as they do UFB equivalent services on Alcatel Lucent gear) or your own gear.
Commissioning OLTs in Chorus Exchanges, or colo somewhere else, plus commissioning OLTs for the other LFCs plus the associated operational costs from that.
Installation of Fibre Splitters and making sure they are up to spec and installed within the same space.
Then after all of the above is sorted installing new ONTs at customers.

If this was so cheap Chorus would be making money hand over fist which we all know they aren't.

An interesting play could be if Enable/UFF/Northpower branch into Chorus areas (if the CFH allowed it?)

Or if Unison wanted to make a wider push other than the areas they are playing in.

And lastly if Spark wanted to pick this up IMHO they are the only player big enough for it to be remotely a good idea, but if that happened it would be back to a single vertically integrated provider and regulation would result.

So I do struggle with how anyone would make any money. Or perhaps it's like becoming a Millionaire, start of being a Billionaire and throw some cash at this idea.

sbiddle

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#2084427 5-Sep-2018 16:22

BarTender:

An interesting play could be if Enable/UFF/Northpower branch into Chorus areas (if the CFH allowed it?)

Cough. Cough.

You mean Chorus expanding into LFC areas?

Christchurch and Hamilton are prime candidates for Chorus UFB expansion come 2020. There is lots of existing fibre in the ground and lots of business customers.

Tinkerisk

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#2084431 5-Sep-2018 16:33

BarTender:

If you want VoIP on your own managed device then ...

Nope. It's mandatory (here) that all VoIP must be managed behint the RSP's ONT, regardless of the ISP. This gives the widest freedom for all and the customer can omit the ISPs who are not willing to cooperate. For sure, there is much less opportunity to earn easy money for 'service' never needed when the ISP does this work accordingly. The RSP rules the ISP, not vice versa.

All said from my side since I don't life in NZ. But it should not hurt any geeker here to have another view aboard ... ;-)

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BarTender

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#2084435 5-Sep-2018 16:48

Tinkerisk:

BarTender:

If you want VoIP on your own managed device then ...

Nope. It's mandatory (here) that all VoIP must be managed behint the RSP's ONT, regardless of the ISP. This gives the widest freedom for all and the customer can omit the ISPs who are not willing to cooperate. For sure, there is much less opportunity to earn easy money for 'service' never needed when the ISP does this work accordingly. The RSP rules the ISP, not vice versa.

All said from my side since I don't life in NZ. But it should not hurt any geeker here to have another view aboard ... ;-)

Erm, sorry but no. You can purchase your Voice service from either of the above two links I provided and get your own voice service. Then have a Naked Broadband service from whichever RSP/ISP you like and you can use whatever router you prefer.

You are just complaining that the RSP/ISP you have chosen only offer managed VoIP services.

Tinkerisk

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#2084436 5-Sep-2018 16:50

BarTender:

Supplying data is easy, it's just inbound packets without any quality of service. Voice is MUCH MUCH more complex to do properly with QoS and prioritisation of Voice over the Data so you d. Hence why RSPs don't like anyone plugging any old random SIP client into their managed VoIP stack having the expectation that it would work.

Easy to solve: There is a list of recommended/preferred VoIP equipment compiled by the RSP. That's service - and not to establish a paid hotline where customers raise the same questions each and every day.

Tinkerisk

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#2084438 5-Sep-2018 16:51

BarTender:

Erm, sorry but no.

Sorry, yes. I'm located in Germany.

yitz

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#2084441 5-Sep-2018 16:58

How many times greater would the cost of unbundling be compared to what they spent upgrading HFC to "FibreX"?

I'd wager not more than 2x but no doubt Huawei are well familiar and would love to have the business of essentially overbuilding parts of the network they originally built.

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